


Blair's Island

by Kerensa



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: First Kiss, First Times, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-15
Updated: 2016-06-15
Packaged: 2018-07-15 06:00:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7210805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kerensa/pseuds/Kerensa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim and Blair crash land on an island. How will they get along? Will they be rescued?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blair's Island

**Blair’s Island** \- [Kerensa](mailto:Strifesmistress@yahoo.com)

_Warnings: Death of a character, but it is off screen and not a main character._

Blair heard whistling, very faint and off in the near distance, but still distinguishable enough to rouse him from his slumber; it was the theme to Gilligan’s Island. The anthropologist sighed and rolled his eyes as he sat up from his ‘bed’. 

“Jim, for pity’s sake,” he groused. Being a Sentinel, with all of the enhanced senses that came with it, meant that Ellison heard Blair’s complaint, no matter where he was at the moment. It couldn’t have been too far away, because Sandburg heard him snicker. Blair shook his head; it still amazed him how happy Jim was with their current predicament. 

Standing slowly, the younger man stretched and twisted, getting ready for the coming day. Before he left their shelter, Blair picked up the black magic marker that he’d had in his backpack and made another mark on one of the pieces of wood that made up their ‘wall’. 

_Seventeen days,_ Blair thought to himself as he recapped the marker. _I can’t believe we have been stranded for seventeen days._

++++ 

20 days before 

_This has got to be the most boring convention that I’ve ever been to,_ Blair thought to himself as he listened to yet another speaker extolling the virtues of, he listened carefully, enhanced Velcro on the straps of Kevlar vests. Sandburg could feel his brain atrophying from the mindlessness of the subjects he’d listened to with Jim for the last two days. Undoubtedly, the information was important…to someone, but for everybody else it was mind numbing. 

Normally, Blair could find something useful and at least mildly interesting in any talk or lecture—heaven knows he’d had enough practice over the years as an academic—but even he was at a loss to do more than stay awake in most of these _information imparting seminars_. 

_Even the names are boring._

Blair glanced around the room and was only able to find one other person besides himself who was even halfway coherent, and that was the speaker. Jim had slumped down in his seat so far that Blair just knew the chair was leaving an imprint on the detective’s back. That in itself showed just how sad and pathetic these sessions were, because the ex-soldier sat at attention, and paid attention, all of the time. 

“You ready to get out of here, Chief?” 

Blair blinked slowly as he focused his eyes on Jim, who was now standing in front of him. He glanced around the room and realized to his chagrin that the session had ended sometime during his wool gathering. He stood up quickly, before the woman speaker could start up again, and stood beside Ellison bouncing a little to get the circulation back in his legs. 

“You bet, man,” he enthused. 

Ellison grinned at Blair’s enthusiasm, knowing that it stemmed from the fact that this was their last day of the convention and they were going home the next morning. The Sentinel couldn’t blame the curly haired man, because he was anxious to leave himself. Most people looked forward to conventions, considering them a semi-vacation. 

_They obviously have never been to a cop conference,_ he mused. _Or at least this one._

“Let’s go, Chief. Home awaits.” 

++++ 

_Famous last words,_ Ellison thought. It was the following evening and he and Blair were still camped out at the airport. Jim looked over to his companion and saw that Blair had finally been able to fall asleep, curled up on one of the bench chairs. 

The detective sighed. He couldn’t even be mad at the airport, or the airline, or, well, anybody, because it was their own fault, really. 

It was Blair who overheard the conversation. Two soldiers, still in their desert camouflage fatigues, had been lamenting the time it was going to take them to get home for their leave. Blair had told Jim, who knew well that a 48 hour leave meant just that, 48 hours, travel time included. He and Blair had exchanged a single glance before Blair had gone up to the two young men and offered them their seats. 

_And now we wait._ Jim shifted in the uncomfortable seat and glanced around the room, more for something to do than from interest. All of the flights since then had been booked solid and they couldn’t even get a hotel room, because, you guessed it, there were conventions in town. They couldn’t even rent a car to drive home, because the convention had been in Hawaii. 

“Excuse me, son.” Jim glanced up, startled by the man’s appearance in front of him. 

_I must be more tired than I thought,_ he mused to himself. It had been years since someone snuck up on him. 

“Yes, sir?” 

“My name is William Hale.” The older, gray haired man stuck out his hand and Jim shook it, followed immediately by Blair, who had obviously been woken by the conversation. 

“Hello, Mr. Hale,” Blair greeted him deferentially. 

“How do, son. And please, call me Will.” 

“Alright, Will,” Ellison complied. “How can we help you?” 

“Well, I’m hoping I can help you boys.” He sat down on the bench beside Jim and faced both men. “I’m friendly with some of the clerks here and they were telling me about your sacrifice and how you all are stuck here for the foreseeable future.” 

Will gave Jim and Blair a wide, very white grin, one that lit up his whole face and showed how charming the older man was. ‘I’ll bet he’s had his share of lovers over the years,’ Jim thought appreciatively. 

“…I have my own plane and since I’m heading back to the states I wanted to see if you boys wanted to tag along.” Ellison tuned back into the conversation in time to hear the offer. 

“That’s a very generous offer, Will,” the Sentinel told him, even as he looked over at his own lover; Blair’s grin was every bit as big as the older man’s had been. “Are you sure it wouldn’t be an imposition?” 

“Nah.” Will waved a hand dismissively. “As I said, I was already heading there, so it wouldn’t be any problem for you two to ride along.” 

“Thank you very much, Will.” Blair stuck out his hand again to be shaken. “This is such a help.” 

“Glad to do it. You helped those soldiers and I’m helping you. And we all know that those boys are helping everybody,” he added, mentioning the soldiers. “Let’s go.” 

Thanks to Jim’s years as a soldier himself and Blair’s life of traveling, it only took a few seconds to gather up their belongings and they were ready to go. The three of them made a handsome picture as they walked down the concourse towards the area where private planes were parked. Blair with his long curly hair, Jim with his toned and muscular body and Will, who although he was older, still had a good build and a very nice face. More than one head turned as they walked by. 

++++ 

“On top of old Smokeyyyyyy, all covered with cheeseeee. I lost my poor meatball, when somebody sneezed. It rolled off the tableeee and onto the floor….” 

Blair was laughing so hard, Jim thought he was going to strain something. The detective had to admit that he was laughing pretty hard himself. Will had a great singing voice, if a somewhat eclectic taste in music, but he was definitely entertaining. 

In fact, both men were enjoying the singing so much that it wasn’t until the plane went into a nosedive that either of them realized Will had stopped. Ellison grabbed the arms of his seat and spared a look at Blair, who was looking back at him. The Sentinel guessed that his face looked just as terrified as his lover’s did. The angle of descent was so steep that neither man had a chance of getting to the cockpit, and Will, where something terrible had apparently gone wrong. Just as Jim was praying for a quick death for all of them, the plane suddenly leveled out. Jim jerked his eyes over to meet Blair’s suddenly hopeful gaze. 

“Will?” Jim called out. 

“I’m…tryin’,” the older man’s voice was strained. 

Jim was reaching for his seatbelt, preparatory to going up front to help their new friend, when the plane bounced violently. Then it did it again, and again. And then they hit the treetops and the gyrations really began. 

Blair yelled, “Jim!” and that was the last thing the Sentinel heard. 

++++ 

“…ome on out of it, man. You need to come back to me now.” Blair’s voice was calm and soothing, as it always was when he was in Guide mode, but underneath it, Jim heard the worry brewing like a pot of soup simmering on the stovetop. 

Ellison persuaded his eyelids that this might be a good time to open up, because he needed to reassure his lover that he was awake, and he needed to see for himself that Blair was okay. Slowly, his vision cleared and the first thing he saw was Blair’s blue eyes; they were one of the most beautiful things Jim had ever seen, especially when Blair sighed in relief, which made his eyes light up. 

“Aw, man, I’m glad to see you awake.” Sandburg leaned over and gave Jim a quick kiss on the lips. When he straightened back up, Jim was able to see that Blair hadn’t come through their ordeal unscathed. The younger man’s face was a whole array of purples and blacks, deep burgundy and even a few yellows where they hadn’t darkened yet. 

“Are you alright, Chief? You look like crap.” 

The anthropologist smirked in amusement and Jim grimaced, glad that Blair wasn’t a woman who would be more likely to take offense at the comment. “I’m not hurt very much. Some though,” he admitted, rubbing his left shoulder with a hand that was as discolored as his face. “Are you hurt anywhere?” the observer asked, eyeing Jim carefully. 

The Sentinel did an internal and external inventory of his body. Like Blair, he knew that there was a mélange of bruises and several aching bones, but nothing seemed to be broken or dislocated. All in all, they came through the plane wreck in pretty good shape. 

“I think I’m alright, Chief.” He glanced around, noticing for the first time that he was lying on the ground some distance from the plane. Their bags containing their clothes, toiletries, etc. were stacked up beside the same tree that he and Blair were sitting under. 

“How long was I out, Chief?” Jim asked, surprised at the amount of other things that Blair had managed to rescue from the plane. 

“You were zoned, Big Guy, and it took me a while to get you back. 

A while, in Blair-speak, meant long enough that the Shaman had been really worried that he might not be able to rescue Jim from the abyss. Rescue…. 

“Will?!” he shouted, looking around. 

Blair’s restraining hand on his arm prevented Ellison from getting up to help the older man. “He’s gone, Jim. My guess is that he had a heart attack or something like that. By the time I came to, he was already getting cold.” 

“That explains the crash,” Jim nodded thoughtfully. “You were unconscious,” he stated. 

“Yeah, and no, I don’t know how long I was out.” 

Jim sat up and looked carefully into Blair’s eyes; he didn’t see any difference in the pupils and Blair wasn’t disoriented or dizzy, so he tried not to worry. Ellison was sad to hear about Will’s death; the older man had been nice and might have lived quite a few more years if the heart attack had happened where he could have been given CPR. 

_Or maybe not,_ the Sentinel thought. _Sometimes, it is just your time to die._

“I’m sorry that he died.” 

“Yeah, me too. He was a great guy.” 

“Yes, he was,” Jim told Blair as he pulled his lover into a loose embrace, mindful of injuries that he couldn’t see. _But I’m glad it wasn’t you,_ he thought silently, even though he felt guilty feeling that way. The idea of living while his Blair died was too awful to contemplate. From the look on Blair’s face, similar thoughts were running through his mind, with the highly compassionate younger man feeling even guiltier. 

“We’ve survived and from the little time I knew Will, I don’t think he would want us to feel guilty about living when he didn’t.” 

He could feel Blair smile against his shoulder. The curly haired man leaned back. “You’re right. And if we are going to manage until we’re rescued, we need to get in gear.” 

Jim nodded. “It looks like you’ve already got a good start there, Chief.” 

“Thanks. I was worried that the plane might explode, so after I got you out, I grabbed as much stuff as I could.” 

Ellison frowned, not liking the idea of his lover going back into a possibly explosive situation. However, he knew that Blair had done what needed to be done, no matter how worrisome. He cautiously sniffed the air. The faint scent of blood and death wafted to him, along with the smell of the ocean and various scents from the nearby jungle, but no fuel. 

“There isn’t a leak.” Blair nodded his head and slumped his shoulders in relief. “Thank goodness for that,” the anthropologist added. 

“Yeah, because that,” the ex-Ranger pointed to the plane, which was still mostly intact, “is going to be our temporary home. We just need to clean up a little and then we can move in.” 

Sandburg tilted his head to one side as he contemplated the downed plane. “Sounds good to me.” 

++++ 

Of course, it wasn’t as simple as all that. Everything that hadn’t been bolted down, and bolted down tight, inside of the plane had become airborne when the plane had nosedived. Luggage had opened and all three men’s clothing was strewn all over, as were the contents of the little galley. 

And sadly, they had to take care of Will’s body. 

The older man was cleaned off—by Jim, who unfortunately was used to doing such things—and carefully wrapped up in a large tarp that Blair found in the back of the plane. It was still in its own plastic bag and therefore clean, so it made a very nice shroud for their fallen friend. 

Jim and Blair took turns digging a grave as far away from their ‘campsite’ as they felt comfortable; far enough that they hopefully wouldn’t smell anything, yet close enough that his body could be retrieved when they were rescued. Will had carried an impressive amount of camping gear, including a small shovel, so both men took turns using that on the sandy soil. It didn’t take very long to dig the grave and after Will had been carefully placed in it and covered with the dirt, they added as many rocks as they could on top, not only to mark the resting place, but also to keep Will safe from any animals. 

++++ 

Blair woke up about like he did when at the loft, which is to say that he woke up very slowly. He heard a faint pinging noise that had him puzzled. It took a few minutes for his semi-slumbering mind to discern what it was he was hearing. 

_It’s raining, again. Thank goodness,_ Blair thought. _We could use some more fresh water._

Rousing himself from the bed that he and Jim shared, Blair stumbled to the door of the airplane, aka their mobile home, and swung the door open. He glanced out into the rainy day, looking for his lover. He wondered if Jim needed help with the bins. 

Sandburg and Ellison, both veterans of many different, and differing, survival scenarios, knew how to collect food and water, so they had scavenged through the plane and found quite a few plastic bowls and different containers that they used to catch the water when it rained. They had even devised a system where plastic sheets (salvaged from a roll of trash bags) were placed over depressions in the sand that they had dug. When a rock was set in the middle of the plastic, it formed a small trough that collected the morning dew in a cup on the ground. A long, straw like tube was stuck in the cup and they could drink out of the container each day. Blair was hoping they weren’t stranded on this island long enough that they needed to resort to Jim’s Plan C, which consisted of trying to dig a well, because Blair knew just how deep wells usually were and he had no desire to try digging one. 

“I’ve got it, Chief,” Blair heard Ellison call out. 

The anthropologist stuck his head out of the door opening, looking for his wayward lover and spotted the ex-Ranger about 15 feet away, standing under a palm tree, wet from the rain. The sight gave Blair an idea. 

++++ 

Ellison nodded happily. All of their collection containers were out in the middle of one of the clearings and rapidly filling up with water; they wouldn’t have to worry about drinking or cooking water for some time to come. Not that they couldn’t get some water from the ocean and boil it to get rid of the salt, but that water tasted like crap and was only to be used as a last resort. 

“Woo hoo!” 

Jim looked up at Blair’s enthusiastic cry and gasped. Sandburg was standing out in the middle of the clearing himself, although well away from their buckets, and was as naked as the day he was born. As the Sentinel watched, his lover twirled around in the pouring rain. 

Ellison gasped at the sight. For some reason, a naked Blair in the rain was completely different than a wet Blair in the shower. At least his cock thought so. 

“Come on, Jim. This way we can get a salt free shower!” Sandburg ran his hands through his hair and then down his chest, scrubbing through the pelt of dark curls that covered his torso. 

The Sentinel dialed up his eyesight to take in every drop of water that covered every single hair on Blair’s body—and boy were there a lot of both—as he hurried out to join the younger man. Luckily for Jim, Blair had taught him well over the years and he coupled his sense of smell with his sense of sight, so he wasn’t drawn into a zone out as he drank the curly haired man in. 

++++ 

Blair looked over and smiled at Jim when he saw that he was coming out for a shower too. Then he saw the determined look on the Sentinel’s face and the way he was prowling, rather than walking and his smile grew even bigger. 

_Yum. Looks like we’re going to do more than wash off,_ he thought delightedly, licking his lips. 

“Hey, babe. Wanna have fun?” he asked. Rather, he started to ask. Actually, he only got partway through the second sentence before Ellison’s mouth smothered anything else he might have said. Their tongues dueled and hands groped until, for some silly reason they needed to breathe. 

“Clothes off, man,” Blair demanded, pulling on Jim’s shirt. 

With an efficiency born of many years in the military, Jim was stripped in seconds. It turned out that rainwater wasn’t the best lube in the world…but aloe, which happily grew on the island, was. 

++++ 

A few hours later, the two men were resting in their bed, worn out from their lovemaking. Jim was propped up on one elbow, indulging in his favorite pastime, watching Blair. He didn’t get to do that enough, in his opinion, because the younger man was always moving, never still enough for him to be able to fully enjoy the experience, not unless he was asleep, that is. 

Jim ran his free hand through Blair’s curly strands. The rainwater made the curls softer than any conditioner and Ellison vowed that if—no, when—they were rescued, he was going to put a bucket out on the balcony of the loft and insist that Blair use that water to wash his hair. 

The ex-Ranger moved his hand so that it was caressing Blair’s face. Luckily, the two of them had needed to present a respectable image at the convention, and Will had been on vacation, so all three men had been carrying their shaving kits. This meant Jim and Blair had been able to remain clean shaven, despite their rough surroundings. 

_Thank goodness,_ Jim thought. _Blair can get wooly enough over night; I can’t imagine what he’d look like after a few weeks without the benefit of a razor._ The image of a Rip Van Winkle type of grad student, complete with a three foot long beard, had Ellison grinning. 

“What’s so funny?” Blair asked lazily. 

Jim should have known that his petting his lover would rouse the younger man from his sleep. “Nothing, I’m just happy,” he admitted. 

Blair smiled at him and Jim knew that his statement was odd. Here they were, lost in an unknown location, and after almost three weeks, rescue wasn’t looking good, and yet, he was the happiest he’d ever been. 

“It’s okay, Jim, I understand,” Blair stated. 

“You do?” Which was amazing, since Jim didn’t rightly know why he felt this way himself. 

“Uh huh. Here there are no weird smells, no sudden, loud noises, no big surprises. It’s simple here.” 

The Sentinel thought about that for a few minutes. He had gone back to rubbing Blair’s soft hair and the younger man didn’t seem to object to the caresses. “And, best of all, I have you.” Blair’s eyes widened in surprise and delight. “My lover, my Guide.” 

“Jim, that is the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.” 

Ellison resolved to say more things like that to the most important person in his life. 

++++ 

The next morning, Jim was gathering firewood when Blair emerged from the jungle, the way he did every day. Jim’s area of expertise was in hunting and chopping, so he had learned how to kill animals by throwing rocks. It had taken a few times of missing, and a lot of time practicing, but the Sentinel had been able to combine his enhanced sense of sight and a strong throwing arm to be able to hit and kill a few birds to supplement their diet. 

Blair, the eternal nature boy, had traveled all around the world by the time he was 14 years old, so he knew by sight which berries were safe to eat and which would give you the runs. He had found more nuts, berries and edible plants on the island than Jim would have thought possible; he foraged into the edges of the jungle every day. 

Both men loved to fish, so again, Jim had fashioned himself a fishing pole and Blair had carved a point on a fairly straight stick and made himself his own fishing spear. Between the two of them, they managed to catch quite a bit of fish. 

So, with a diet consisting of berries, edible plants, fish and the occasional bird, Jim and Blair were living pretty well and still had some of the snacks and things that Will had on the plane. They had smoked some of the fish to save it for days when they weren’t able to catch any fresh ones. 

Luckily for them, firewood wasn’t really a problem. When the plane had gone down, it had knocked into quite a lot of trees, tearing down branches, and in some cases, whole trees. To make the bigger sections into smaller sections, Jim and Blair drug the length of wood over to their campsite and placed it over one of their fires and let it burned through the middle of it. (Because, let’s face it, Jim was always well prepared, but even he wouldn’t go to a conference with an ax.) They repeated the process again and again, until the wood was in usable sections. There hadn’t been any need for either of them to rub sticks together to create the fire, because apparently Will had been a smoker and there was a package of unopened lighters in the cockpit. 

Blair and Jim ran around in, well, not very much, really. Sandburg had a pair of cut off shorts that he used for swimming and Jim simply wore a pair of his boxers. Blair had explained thoroughly, and at length, that they should save their clothes in case the weather got colder, because who knew how long they were going to be stuck on the island. 

Jim had agreed, although he had to admit that he hadn’t listened too closely; Blair had been wearing the shorts, and nothing else, and Ellison’s attention had been on more important things. All the Sentinel cared about was the fact that his lover was running around mostly naked, his skin growing darker by the day as his hair grew sun streaked, which made his blue eyes shine like the brightest of jewels. Blair’s nipple ring glinted in the sunlight, peaking out of the swirls of dark chest hair like a beacon. 

Most days Ellison walked around half hard and there were quite a few occasions when he had tackled his Guide and they made love wherever they landed. Not that Blair was complaining. 

All in all, life was pretty good. 

++++ 

“Jim, what’s the matter?” Blair asked when the Sentinel stopped scaling the fish in his hands. Sandburg had just returned from foraging and had several different foodstuffs in his hands. 

“I hear something,” Ellison said flatly. 

Blair glanced around quickly. Their island was wonderful, but they had come across the occasional predatory animal in their wanderings. So far, nothing had approached their campsite, but you never knew when hunger and bravery would bring them closer. 

“Like what?” The anthropologist hadn’t seen or heard anything, but that wasn’t new. 

“A plane.” 

Blair blinked in surprise and glanced up at the sky. Far off in the distance, he saw a dark speck that was headed their way. The grad student gave his Sentinel a quick, assessing look. From the tone of Jim’s voice and the rather grim look on his face, Blair knew that Ellison wasn’t too thrilled with the idea of being rescued from _Blair’s Island_. The younger man agreed, to a point, because they were happy and living well, but… 

“What if something happened to one of us?” Blair asked. He didn’t have to elaborate, because he and Jim were so attuned to one another that the cop knew what he was talking about. The grad student didn’t have to specify either. Blair couldn’t bring down birds, etc. with a rock like Jim could and Ellison didn’t know the local vegetation like Blair did. It took both men to provide for them and illness, injury, or eventually, old age could eliminate either one of them. 

“Yeah.” Ellison sounded resigned to his fate, not like someone who ‘hopefully’ was about to be rescued. 

They hurried over to the pyre that they had prepared the first few days after they were marooned. Lots and lots of tree branches and grass were piled up, almost as tall as Blair, because they had added to it every day, ready for a match, or in this case, a lighter. 

The dried grass caught quickly, sending up a thick plume of smoke, even before the wood had really caught fire. By the time the wood began to blaze it was obvious that the occupants of the plane had seen them, as the silver vehicle angled towards them. Their island wasn’t big enough for the pilot to land—not to mention, that there wasn’t a runway—so the pilot wagged the wings back and forth a couple of times to let Jim and Blair know that they had been seen. 

Jim walked back to the edge of the water and picked up the fish he’d discarded. Blair followed his lover and finished cleaning the food he’d found, because there was no telling how long it would take for a boat or a helicopter to make it to their position. 

“Hey, man.” Blair placed a hand on Jim’s shoulder and noticed how tense the muscles underneath his hand were. Jim looked over at Blair and gave him a half-hearted, sickly smile. “It doesn’t have to be so bad,” the younger man tried to console Ellison. 

Jim nodded. “Back to the rat race,” he said sadly. 

Blair turned around and sat down beside his lover; the two men were side by side, their hips legs and torsos touching on Jim’s left side and Blair’s right. They watched the sun setting off to one side, as they waited silently for their fish to cook. Odds were that they would be spending another night on _Blair’s Island_. 

Blair bumped the Sentinel with his shoulder. “You know, we can always keep the coordinates of this place and come back every once in a while.” 

“That’s true.” Ellison seemed to perk up at the idea. “We could come back here for vacations.” 

“Right on!” Blair enthused, because truth be told, he wasn’t any happier at leaving their little home. “Bring a couple of supplies with us and we could have a high old time.” 

Jim nodded. “Water,” he said. 

“Water,” Blair said at the same time. Both men laughed at the coincidence. Their belowground still‘s worked wonders, but the water they produced wasn’t the tastiest in the world. 

“What say we eat and then go enjoy our last night of freedom,” Ellison offered, rubbing a hand along Blair’s thigh suggestively. 

“Freedom, for now,” Blair amended, reminding the cop of their decision to come back. “Sounds good to me, Big Guy. Let’s go make some noise.” 

And they did. And nobody was around to hear or complain and they did come back, several times that next year alone. 

The End. 

Notes: Thanks to Caro Dee who wanted a story where Jim and Blair are stranded on an island. She made a generous donation to the Moonridge Auction for the story. Betaed by Bobbie. 


End file.
